The general-purpose lojban mailing list, which covers anything else related to Lojban, was founded in 1989, and has about 500 subscribers. You can subscribe to it by sending an email to lojban@googlegroups.com.

Skype and QQ

Technical rules of using Skype/QQ

Some people have trouble operating Skype. So here are the basic rules of a successful voice chat for Skype

Use a group where all potential speakers share their interest in the forthcoming conference in text form only. This group already exists. It's called {ko ciska po'o tavla ...} (meaning "Talk by writing only...") This group is only for planning, not for actual talking. Ask in this mail thread to add you there.

One person runs a desktop version of Skype and has good incoming and outcoming internet connection (~1Mbit/sec in both directions is fine).

This person must add all interested people to his/her friend list and those people must confirm "friendship".

This person calls the first person and after successful connection drops other people into the chat window.

Please, everyone switch off your video by pressing on the video button so that it becomes crossed out.

Before any conference check your microphone and audio settings of Skype. Add "echo123" user (it's a bot) to your friend list, call it and follow the instruction. Change settings of your Skype client if necessary.

If you have noise around you during the conference or if other members notice a noise from your side switch off your microphone by pressing on the Microphone button so that it becomes crossed out.

I think that as of now Skype is preferable since it has better voice compression and buffering mechanisms preventing clicks/pauses during conversation due to unstable internet connection. As of now it's unlikely that 100% of potential students of Lojban get normal internet connection. Many even change to mobile connection dropping the level of fast + stable internet connection even more.

QQ messenger used in China tested several times with mainland China residents and non-residents works okay. Just like Skype.

Skype Phone Group Topics

You can arrange a voice call (phone or VoIP) with another Lojban speaker at any skill level. A lot of people have expressed concern about the phone group with respect to the "well, what would we talk about?" issue. I'm pretty sure that discussions about that will take up a lot of space, so please see the Phone Group Topics page.

To join, just add people above to your Skype friends' list and ask who might be available to talk with you.

In an ideal universe, Robin Lee Powell'd like to see people matched up with people of very different levels of ability, to spread the expertise around as quickly as possible, but I'm not hugely attached to that.

Lojban On The Phone

Please bear in mind, everyone, that collision avoidance is hard on the phone. Please become familiar with ta'a, re'i, be'e, je'e, ki'a and ke'o. Especially that last one. :-)

About Expertise

The "expertise" field in the members table is currently rather informal, and you are welcome to alter yours as you feel appropriate. However, Robin Lee Powell and Nick Nicholas have had their expertise certified in person. The reason behind such system is the option of making the phone group into a ranking system, similar to Chess rankings. In other words, if you want to be certified Expert level, you ask Robin or Nick to take some time to call you up and basically hammer away at you for an hour. You, in turn, can then certify people at rankings below Expert (or, possibly, at or below expert).

2. Real life clubs

Organize in real life Lojban clubs based on your physical location on the planet:

Southeast Michigan Lojban Group - A group of about half a dozen Lojban enthusiasts met at Matt Arnold's house in Redford, Michigan about every two weeks (except when college is in session, because so many of them are undergrads, grad students, or teachers). Regular attendees include Bruce Webber, TheRomp, Shaun Klein, Neil Eppstein, and Alex Martini. The group has been going in one form or another since March 2005.

A Lojban group started at Grinnell College in Iowa, in October 2006.

Jay Kominek is interested in starting one at the University of Colorado, let him know if you're in the area.

Robin Lee Powell used to teach a class in the Silicon Valley area, in Northern California. He'd be willing to do so again if enough people were interested. I know two people here that would attend, but I'd be interested in other jbopre joining.

Anagram is interested in informally gathering for a workshop of beginners in the Bakersfield, California area. Try contacting him via irc.freenode.net. My registered nick is Anagram, you may leave me a memo via memoserv.

Arnt Richard Johansen will teach anyone in 'Trondheim, NO' who is interested. Contact him at arj ATT nvg dot org.

There has been talk of some of us Southern Californian jbopre getting together in Pomona monthly. More info at SoCalLojbanists.

For Aussies in and around Sydney, I (la .djunias.) am looking to start a Lojban club near Macquarie University. If you're interested, please contact me!

No point meeting me if you want to practice Lojban conversation! I have never really got round to learning such conversationally vital stuff as gismu, BAI, tense, UI... That doesn't mean I'm not willing to try a bit, tho.

All posts to this list are moderated, and all must include a description for where followup conversation should go. For example: "there are now Lojban flashcards on smart.fm; follow up discussion should go to the Beginners list" (but presumably with more detail). This is NOT a discussion list. The list does not set Reply-To, so you should set it to where you want followup discussion to go, if you know how.

The announcement list sends to just about every Lojban email list there is. People can also subscribe to it directly, if they want to get announcements of general community interest but do not want to be on the main mailing lists.

Anything likely to be of interest to large segments of the Lojban community is on topic. In particular, "I'm starting Lojbanic project X and need help/feedback" is what the list is primarily intended for.

xedbig, AKA Hedwig, a private, moderated list with rules (you must be nice, you must speak in Lojban, and you may not criticise how other people speak Lojban)

In addition to this, for research purposes, there are as-complete-as-humanly-possible archives of all Google Groups lists stored as UNIX mail files on one of the lojban.org computers. If you need access to them, mail the LLG secretary.

IRC Logs

Note: the logs are filtered so that they contain only Lojbanic text. However, you might still be offended by the things discussed there. If you are, that's your problem, and the LLG explicitly disclaims responsibility for anything said on the IRC channel, including by members or officers of the LLG.

Furthermore, no guarantee is made as to the correctness of the Lojban therein.

Lojbanic Websites

None of these sites are officially associated with the LLG in any way.

http://jboselkei.lojban.org is an online game of translation from English to Lojban, featuring rating calculation for users. If you don't know how this or that is translated to Lojban, ask it in jboselkei, and as the game proceeds, expect to see one or even more translations of your 'post' made by jboselkei players, with comments. If you are an experienced lojbanist, you will always find a couple or more challenging 'tough nuts' awaiting your translation and promising rating points. jboselkei first appeared in Beta form in mid March 2006, and was upgraded for appearance and usability in November 2006. Playing in jboselkei is very exciting; you are welcome to join!